Whom Do We Blame, As We Watch Nature Dry Up?
by Donella Meadows
— August 12, 1999 —
Early this summer, long before the word “drought” was mentioned in the media, our household of farmers was ready to strangle the weather forecasters. “A gorgeous sunny day coming up,” they’d warble. “Another beeyootiful weekend!” To us that meant a day of blistering sun, a beeyootiful weekend of irrigating.
“City folk!” we’d mutter, as the [...]
Two Mindsets, Two Visions of Sustainable Agriculture
by Donella Meadows
— July 29, 1999 —
“I guess you must be in favor of pesticides,” concluded a Monsanto public relations guy, after I objected to his company’s genetically engineered potato.
“I guess it’s OK with you if people starve,” said a botanist I deeply respect, with whom I have carried out a fervent argument about genetic engineering.
Accusations like these astonish me. [...]
Monsanto Gets Pie in the Face
by Donella Meadows
— March 18, 1999 —
Poor Monsanto.
To my knowledge only one other company — Microsoft — has managed to be so hated that its CEO — Bill Gates — has been hit in the face by a cream pie. The pie that hit Monsanto’s CEO Bob Shapiro at an environmental forum last fall was made of tofu, in protest [...]
Y2K and the Average Bite of Food
By Donella Meadows
–July 2, 1998–
The average bite of food eaten by an American travels 1300 miles from field to mouth.
That statistic is quoted over and over by people who want us to think about how distant we are from our basic sustenance, how vulnerable our lives have become, how dependent on systems we can’t control or even understand. These people [...]
Is a Bioengineered Potato Organic?
By Donella Meadows
–July 31, 1997–
It’s tempting for someone who has grown some carrots any old way to slap the label “organic” on them and get a higher price. Whenever there’s real value around, someone will come up with a counterfeit.
So farmers who raise their vegetables with the care that the word “organic” implies have been working on certification programs with [...]
